Artists

Nâdira Pirmatova was born in 1976 in Isfara, Tajikistan. Her musical and religious family is of mixed Uzbek and Tajik origin. She first learned classical singing from her father, and then at the Tashkent Conservatory. At the age of 18 she won second prize for singing maqâm and was discovered by the master Abdurahim Hamidov, who then took over her training.

In 2005, Nâdira Pirmatova represented her country at the prestigious international song competition at the Samarkand Festival. Dispensing with the usual academic rules, she decided not to have an orchestra accompany her. She sang two songs, one a Capella, and the other accompanying herself on the dutôr, as in the old, long-forgotten tradition of the classic minstrels. The international jury was entirely captivated, and awarded Nâdira first prize, won a few years previously by the likes of Monajat Yulchieva and Alim Qasimov.

 

It is said that the refined art of Shash-maqâm cannot be mastered – nor indeed appreciated – until one is of a mature age. Nâdira proves the exception to the rule. From a very young age she always knew that she would become a maqâmchi, a singer of maqâm. She was only 25 when she recorded the most difficult passages of Maqâm Dogâm for Maison des Cultures du Monde . She sang the twenty minute long prelude, out of one breath without a fault, surpassing other well-known singers who had not been able to achieve this feat.

 

However, as demanding is the path she has chosen, she hasn't neglected easier genres, such as classical (khalqi klassiki), popular (khalqi), songs (qoshiq), and the more popular traditional songs such as those of the women of Bukhara (sâzanda). Interestingly, that Nâdira is also one of the rare vocalists of our time who can sing just as well in Persian-Tajiki and in Uzbeki, her two native languages.

Nâdira Pirmatova performs with brio and with the essential depth of her tradition, and brings to it her unique talent: the female voice in its most sublime, evocative form. In Fes , she is accompanied by the great tanbur (lute) player, Shurat Nabiev.

Jean During